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tv   [untitled]    March 18, 2012 7:30pm-8:00pm EDT

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the circular floor features an astronomical map showing much of the universe as it appeared on the date of dedication in april 1979. it coincided with einstein's 100th birthday. visitors of all ages are drawn to the iconic figure of the grounds of the national academy of science. children especially enjoy climbing into the lap of the scientific genius with the smile of a grandfather. >> there is a new website to find our schedules and preview upcoming programs. watch featured video from our weekly series as well as history tweets, history in the news and social media from facebook and twitter and fore square. follow american history tv all weekend every weekend is c-span and online at c-span.org/history.
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>> working closely with james madison and first lady dolly mad to refine the look and function of the early white house. the partnership with the madisons is the subject of a top at the maryland historical society. collects manager at the white house historical association that is headquartered across from the white house where he once labored. this program is 45 minutes. >> if you want to try to get a seat, we start. good evening and welcome to the 2012 francis scott key lecture series at the maryland historical society.
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we are excited to celebrate the bicentennial or war of 1812. this is the first program in that long celebration. this evening's talk, oh, the terrible velvet curtains and the madisons decorate the president's house is being presented by leslie jones of the white house historical association. before i introduce our speaker, i want to point out the items we have pulled for tonight's presentation. in the library cases you can see the bound letters to mrs. madison dating to 1809 regarding the decoration as well as another letter dated the following year to the finley brother who is made the painted furniture for the madisons. he shows the sketch of a chair indicating the area where they tended to break. reproductions of the furniture that was burned in 1814 are on view here this evening. i would like to announce that
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c-span is filming tonight's presentation so we would appreciate if you would turn off your cell phones in case they ring in the middle of the lecture. on to our speaker. leslie jones serves as the executive assistant to the president and the david m rubenstein center for white house history at decatur hose. he acts as curator and collects manager for the design decatur house located in lafayette square owned by the trust for historic preservation and works in developing the public programming redesign of the white house visitor's center and oversees relations among many other tasks. he received a ba from miami university ohio in the history of architecture and completed her ma from the smithsonian associates and corcoran college of art designs history of masters program in 2010 with a
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thesis entitled pierre antoine seating furniture for the white house, evolution within the interior. miss jones is the curator of the washington winter shows exhibition. treasures of the first families and will be curating the 2013 exhibit as well. she is an independent lecturure on topics related to early 19th century american in white house history. institutions she has spoken for include the smithsonian institution, society of the cincinnati, american institute of architects, national trust for historic preservation, pca, aca, national society of coclonian dumbarton house and the smithsonian gallery. welcome leslie jones.
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>> good evening. thank you for choosing to spend your thursday night here with us at the maryland historical society. that was a very generous introduction. thank you, mark. we are going to go ahead and get started. i believe i'm queueing to you for slides. thank you. oh, the terrible velvet curtains. the madisons decorate the white house. this image right here on the very front is actually the earliest known published image of the white house from a travel book. at this time when the madisons came into the white house, only part of the white house was finished. before the british came marched into washington and ended up burning the city to the ground. next slide. its original architect james hoebin won the competition set forth by washington and jefferson in 1792 to build what washington envisioned for the president's house, i would
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design a building that should look forward and execute no more of it at present than night suit the circumstances that shall be first wanted. a plan more than executed in a future president when the wealth, population, importance of it shall stand upon a higher ground than they do present. washington really understood that the white house may evolve just as the united states may. the city's commissioners went to france looking for builders. they are commissioned to the city looking for mason men. they said "we wish to exhibit a grandeur of conception, a republican simplicity and true elegance of proportion that corresponds to a tempered freedom the good of little minds. contemporary counts describe the building as a palazzo. with no extraordinary features in a classed class simple as you
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can see. washington never lived in the white house, he lived a cornerstone before he passed away in 1799. subsequent presidents moved in and made it their own. the third president of the united states and second to live in the white house, thomas jefferson in office from 1801 to 1809 appointed benjamin as the first surveyor of public buildings to expedite the completion of the federal city. it was just taverns and hotels and the white house and the upcoming capital building. jefferson having his own interests in architecture as seen through his many renovations at the university of virginia and virginia state capital and his own ideas for the white house. he had a personal goal of developing public buildings and creating a city in his life town
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rather than the unpaid landscape that was washington in the early 19th century. his first duties were to finish the south wing of the capital and work on the president's house and develop what is known as navy yard. his work with jefferson was a collaborative effort and the two in six years helped to make the president's house structurally habitable to supply the missing conveniences and the appearances of the building. he added low single story wings. go back, sorry. on the east and west to provide for storage and other necessities and relanscaped the grounds. most of the work that -- excuse me. i skipped a page. let's go back. so i will improvise. this is samuel who was the
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architect with which benjamin le troeb is trained. the next slide. this is the engineer that he trained with in england. this is what we like to call a renaissance man. he was an artist and participator and sculptor and a designer. he had a great mind for various tasks that made him one of the most well-known people in the united states in terms of architecture, granting him the title, father of american architecture is retained. he has retained for well over 200 years. okay. this is his first grand building. he immigrated by way of virginia, but was commissioned to come to philadelphia and build buildings there. he orchestrated the nrnling of their waterworks and this is the first greegz building in the united states, the bank of
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pennsylvania that does not exist anymore unfortunately. getting back to where i was. with his work on the white house, he added low single story wings that you can see right here that were not previously in the design. they were part of what jefferson really had implemented in his influence in the designs. this is a north or south-facing fasat that you can see by the colon e colon ead. that would go into the blue room, about you in this day and age it was. this is the east facade. seeing a profile of the house. . >> jefferson isolated himself as president, but coming into the
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white house and the reputation as extraordinary hosts, they were surely to be lively again as one of two public attractions existing at the time and he was very much counting on the greater opportunity as an architect. he went beside the boundaries of being an architect and an emergency. they dated march 17th, 1809 and reflect the additions to the duties from being just the surveyor of public buildings. he was mrs. madison's retriever. a bit of an exaggeration, but he searched high and low up and down the eastern seaboard for guitars, furniture, rugs, carriages, books, candlestick, snuffers and lace and even -- one more slide. keep going.
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even wallpaper. one more slide. this is a very famous depiction actually of the boston museum of fine arts, the tea party. later in date than what we are looking at with the madisons, but it explains what you would have seen in a very el gapt entertainment situation of the time period. one of the things that he picked up was mrs. madison's iconic turbin. it was a younger look, but she pulled it off quite well. in addition, he picked up her wigs. in one sense, he picked that was a little too small. not sure if that means something if he thought she had a big head or didn't measure it correctly. in march he wrote to mrs. madison to consider what we refer to as the red room and specifies he placed an order for
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chairs that referred to a suite he commissioned by baltimore cabinet makers to make the e liptic or oval-shaped salon on the first floor of the white house. he took to rearranging the use of certain rooms. they outlined three rooms for entertaining. they should receive the most attention and therefore most of the budget. previously jefferson used a large room on the west end as his office. what we know as the state dining room. when they came into the white house, they too made it into the dining room and remained ever since, past the reconstruction. the northwest corner room that jefferson used became two partitioned rooms, acting as offices for his secretary. what we now call the family dining room. the east room which formerly
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acted as the office. we refer to that as a green room. that was a small dining room and they kept that function the same. as well as the salon that was the most formal entertaining position for the white house because it holes the most people. above the e liptic room on the second floor, the family's quarters was the lady's room. these were the only rooms that we have a lot of information surviving on. so much was lost with the burning of the capital. over 200 years and fortunately enough, documents do survive. his provisions for decoration for mrs. madison followed a few unavoidable trends. most often he looks only to the major cities for materials and services and styles. more often than not, his styles are solely english as he was
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english. however despite the constant travel to philadelphia and new york, and baltimore as well, he did not look very closely at washington, georgetown or al zand ray businesses and this displeased a great many people. she had one of the best upholstery shops. he did not call upon her and she felt her duty to spread gossip. it happened then too. he was type faced as an eager and aggressive and loud-mouthed designer and this affected him so much he ended up having to confront miss madison on the matter. in september he writes as far as i could proceed boldly as surveyor of the basketball buildings and in my capacity so i'm called in the papers which obviously he didn't agree with, i found i could not be as useful as i wished. he goes on to write having
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however received two anonymous letters to the sail feeskt e effect, i have not presumed to interfere as surveyor of the public buildings and refrained from entering into the house more than duty requires. in a ps, he continues personally to say i cannot possibly suppose the information i received to be correct. you have reason to be dissatisfied with your carriage which they designed and broke the first time she used it. i'm more than punished by misfortune of employing a man who deceived me. this i had to design an even lay out and frame the furniture for the drawing room. i leave my cause in your hands and it is humiliating to defend it, but it is a good one. a true artist and right-brained. mrs. madison assures him he was not being held in low regard by herself and the president for
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the time being. the work continued. more than just a home for the president to live in, the white house was ment to rifle the most exquisite residences in america which at that time were in philadelphia and new york which is why he frequented the destination so often. additionally if objects needed to be imported he would come to those cities and to landlock washington. america was by no means a richly developed nation. urban cities like new york, boston, philadelphia, charleston and now baltimore were hubs for industry. many luxuries for upper class americans had to be brought in from foreign lands like textiles, food, and even natural resources like furniture production. what is difficult to understand in this day and age, design sources were largely imported. there were american craftsmen, but craftsmen relied about
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publications set foergz in england and france and italy to develop the furniture they were going to make. even furniture designs as well. clothing designs. he used his english design sources and specifications that he englished to produce and his furniture designs reflected thomas hope's which were made famous for household furniture published in london in 1807 and this is out of hope's book. does this look familiar? we will see that later as well. the design source was appropriate as they based so much style, governing and taste on reflections of ancient greece and rome. this was the site right here and rooms that were focused right
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around an tick witty and the collection of vases whether they were reproducts or originals from the ruins in the mediterranean. by 1809, the united states and great britain had signed the peace for now. there was a tendency for many to choose the decor and men are dressing from the homes of french and english. it is generalized, but you see from the costume and ceramic styles, most americans chose french. both countries were taking their design from an tick witty. where they got the design resources and students that came back from mom way on the grand tours. mrs. madison was a lover of the french style. this was later, but from pierre
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pursier and fontaine's design book. it percier's design book. it shows you the difference when you look at the thomas hope versus what the french were coming out with. latrobe purchased two massive stone eagles from james draquare, a sculptor in philadelphia, which you see here, and mounted them on the pier gates on the north side of the house. additional four marble mantles were ordered. two were installed. he had a budget in mind and sold two to the u.s. capitol building. as for the furniture, the most iconic pieces were ordered from a pair of brothers in baltimore pft of the 50 cabinet makers in baltimore listed at this time, john and hugh finlay were considered the best in what had become one of the most rapidly growing cities. baltimore had put itself on the map in its newly known
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craftsmanship known as fancy furniture. latrobe commissioned the finlays for all the funnishings going into the large elliptical room. this is not from the white house collection or from the white house suite. you can see here, obviously, the antiquity influence. the splayed legs. also, another chair the finlays created as well. what also you'll see as a huge trend here is the caned seat. the 40-piece suite of furniture the finlays made were painted and lacquered in white and gold. here is one of those examples which you'll be able to see closer up later on. but this is one of the couches that the finlays created that
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latrobe designed coming from the greecian examples he saw and used from thomas hope's book. here's a close-up of that design. these are all on display for you to see afterwards. here's an example from what the cushion looks like that you could see formerly on the last design we saw. more of that. okay. and the -- some of the furniture was also grained in imitation of highly figured mahogany. mahogany at this time was not a native wood of the united states. it was mostly imperted and very expensive. fancy furniture, although it was very fashionable, was also sort of budget saving. because they were using domestic woods and painting it to look like it was an exotic, imported wood. and there's the chair. now, the cane seats that are used on these funnishings is also another revival style. unfortunately it's a little
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bit -- not unfortunately, but it is a little bit closer in time period than any of the antiquity influences come from. these are also close-ups. you see some of latrobe's small notes here. these are notes that he actually sent to the finlays. here's an example of the cane seat on the modern reproduction. cane seating is very expensive in itself. latrobe also embraced the form of the couch used for reclining at meals. they were set with the sofas on castors that could be moved for easy mobility.
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the furniture was patterned with pictures of antique greek vases. the united states arms also right here invented by pierre charles lafant which was first displayed at federal hall was also applied to the furniture. you can see that same -- this is a little bit modified since it's a little bit earlier. but the same shield which ends up going on the crest of the united states. latrobe encountered plenty more issues while he was going through his design phase. more so than just with any papers or solicitous gossip. the finlays, in fact, caused quite a lot of trouble. the workshop was not operating on the time frame that latrobe had set and he wrote to mrs. madison on september 8th, 1809. mr. finlay of baltimore who has the chairs and sofas in hand appears not to have been equally attentive. i therefore went to baltimore in july and found the chairs ready and such as i wished, but the
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sofas were unfinished. i said everything to urge their completing and applied to general smith who had recommended to me to urge him also. about ten days ago i wrote another letter pressing to finlay but received no answer. now, this room that this furniture was going into, the elliptic room, also was called the oval room, was designed to be the most elegant and formal space on the primary floor of the white house. largely because it could hold the most guests. although architecturally it was designed by james hoeben, latrobe wished to make this space his masterpiece. so he went from being an architect simply to more of an interior designer at this point. he worked through the summer and fall of 1809 to make sure the space was ready as soon as possible. he fretted so much over it he constantly wrote and annoyed the madisons. he was aware of this later on. more so than the finlay problem was the issue of choosing the
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right fabric. what he wished for was silk d damasque. oh, the terrible velvet curtains. when latrobe saw what the curtains were going to look like in the white house, he was mortified. he settled for red silk velvet. the effect was not what he hoped for. the meager $5,000 budget, if only it had been bigger, what have allotted him more too many to either have fabric imported from england or have it made in the united states. instead he hired john ray of philadelphia to make the upholstery for the entire room in the red velvet. and latrobe was certain that the room would get such poor reviews he would never be forgiven. this also goes to show, as i said, that he became more of just the surveyor public buildings, maybe the newspapers weren't too often referred to him as an upholster because he worried so much about the fabric. the reason why we focus so much
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on the elliptical salon is that's what most of the information that is available today survives. we do understand from latrobe's letters that the mantle on the east wall which you see right here had a long french plate mirror above with a lamkin balance atop trimmed with guildguil balls and cloth. here we have president madison, mrs. madison, steven decatur and several other guests. ornamental palmettes were gilded as were the other greecian-inspired accents. here's the design latrobe came
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up with with, the palmettes. the walls were papered and, perhaps, brushed over with a light coat of fleck coach paint and the wood work was -- george bridgeport of philadelphia was employed to paint the ceiling and wood work. he was known for his subtlety in application. this box is actually mrs. madison's tea box. it was given by her to mrs. latrobe, so it's one of the only other things besides the bgilbet stewart that survives at the white house. this wallpaper was most likely to wallpaper used in the elliptical salon. when we come back to the painting again, you'll see this is actually used as historical reference. there's an inscription here from mrs. madison to mrs. latrobe. they'd known each other since infancy. mrs. madison was known to have
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spent most of her time working on her own parlor chamber than any other room in the house. also known as the antechamber where the president received guests. the space was said to be extr e extremely fashionable done mostly in a yellow color. in the parlor, a portrait miniature of mrs. madison was present denoting sake. the state dining room transported from being jefferson's library and study into an actual dining room. it had the least amount of money put into it. a modest rug and furniture from theera were used. formerly it was hung in the elliptical salon. but for this -- for a very st, 1810, when guests were finally welcomed into the white house it was moved and

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